AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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ordinaryperson
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AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post by ordinaryperson »

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This is the thread where we'll be discussing Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road.

You can discuss anything you'd like about the section of the novel we are reading. From the 7th of October to the 14th of October we'll be discussing pages 1-72. This thread will probably contain spoilers so be careful when reading the posts in this thread. If by next week you haven't caught up with the previous section we discussed feel free to post about it. Just don't post about anything in any of the sections we haven't gotten to.

The schedule:
Week 1 (7 October - 14 October): 1-72
Week 2 (14 October - 21 October): 73-144
Week 3 (21 October - 28 October): 145-216
Week 4 (28 October - 4 November): 217-End
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ordinaryperson
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post by ordinaryperson »

I've read the section for this week, I haven't read any McCarthy before but had intended to read Blood Meridian sometime in the near future (in fact it was almost my nomination for this month). From the first 72 pages it's become evident to me that the whole novel is about father and son relationships from the perspective of the father. I normally don't like pieces of media that focus on familial relationships, no matter what setting they're in. What I do like so far is the how what caused the apocalypse is kept in secret which makes the setting more mysterious. The book is written in way where it highly focuses on the landscape surrounding the father and son. There is very little dialogue and when conversations happen they are relatively short, combined with the focus on scenery this makes it a little dry to read, I think the word "tarp" has been said over 100 times within these 72 pages. I'm interested in where the book is going but I don't think it'll be very happy.
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whuntva
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post by whuntva »

I read the whole book already. Well...the audiobook.

It has some well-written prose, but ultimately, I find the story to be quite slow. It was a bit hard for me to be fully invested in it so far, but I do at least like the writing style.
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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Today is the day discussion moves on to section 2 (Pages 73-144).
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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Discussion now moves to section 3 (Pages 145-216).
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mileswide
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post by mileswide »

Full disclosure from someone who's only on p72: I'm reading this with mostly fresh eyes as I was falling asleep towards the end of the film adaptation.

The impression I got from my more conscious viewing moments that this post-apocalyptic survival story would be unrelentingly bleak is not completely substantiated. The prevailing mood of absolute despair is leavened by glimpses of joy, like when father and son travel down a hill on an impromptu sled. Having said that, these instances serve primarily to magnify their rarity (indeed, the fleeting amusement of the sled scene prompts the man to wonder when the boy had last smiled).

At this stage, 'the man' and 'the boy' represent the closest we get to finding the characters' names and little backstory emerges, further detaching us from concerning ourselves with the presumably grave fate of the characters. As a counterbalance perhaps, McCarthy makes use of a naturalistic structure and style, which eschews such consciously literary conventions as chapters and quotation marks. While this makes the barrier between the narrative and the reader less fixed, it undermines the sense of purpose, making it seem all the more as if we are watching the characters drift from one disaster to another without any apparent possibility of positive resolution.

Something about it is keeping me reading, though, and I couldn't begin to guess what it is!
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

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Discussion now moves to the final section, so just read till the end.

Sorry about me not posting, the last few weeks have been extremely busy for me, but I will get around to it.

Also, the voting thread for the next book will be posted soon.
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post by ordinaryperson »

Finally finished The Road. After reading this I don't get the hype for this book at all. It would've been better if it was just a short story. The story really drags out with almost no substance. Just the same scenarios about searching for things over and over again.
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Re: AMF Book Club #1.5 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Post by DaveC »

Well The Road is not an entertainment nor is it a novel of ideas.

It might be said that this story highlights the power of love to prevail when all else fails, or maybe that it exposes the essence of what it is to be human. In truth, all living things have a will to live and protect kin, so not really a story about humanity so much as life itself.

The demise of life on earth has been imagined thousands of times and will be imagined thousands more times. Eventually it will happen. So I guess this a true story that hasn't happened yet. This is the only novel I have read in this genre making it hard to rate. I'm not sure that I would like to read another, but the uniqueness of what McCarthy has done here can't be denied. So I'll give it a 7/10.
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